SD teachers union lays groundwork for concessions to save jobs

San Diego  Financial analysts from the California Teachers Association will descend on the San Diego school district this week to scrutinize the budget before local labor leaders survey 7,000 educators about potential concessions that could stop 1,500-plus layoffs from taking effect June 30.

San Diego teachers union chief Bill Freeman summoned the experts to comb through the $1.1 billion budget Wednesday and Thursday before he conducts a poll that would ask members of the San Diego Education Association whether they would consider forgoing raises, extending furloughs and other measures that could save jobs and keep class sizes manageable come September.

“You have not been forgotten. I am losing sleep every night about the 1,534 teachers who would lose their jobs,” Freeman said during an impromptu meeting with educators and parents who showed up at Tuesday’s San Diego school board meeting to protest layoffs at Fay Elementary School, where 26 of 27 teachers have been laid off.

Offering rare insight into the pressures Freeman faces from the fractured union, he fielded questions from Fay teachers who demanded to know why it has taken so long to analyze the budget and survey the membership.

“I could not get the (union) board approval to get that done, You see, there were reasons,” Freeman said, adding that he tried months ago before former Vice President and hard-line labor leader Camille Zombro was ousted from office.

The union board gave Freeman the OK last week to hire consultants to conduct a telephone survey of teachers within the next two weeks to gage what kind of concessions or agreements might be acceptable. The survey will stop once 70 percent of the membership has been polled.

The union president went on to say that the exact timing and content of the survey would remain confidential to keep the information away from “those that will do things to disrupt this. I think you know what I mean...”

Zombro and others have stepped up criticism of Freeman in recent days by posting scathing memos on a blog and sending letters to teachers urging them to reject the union’s plan to secure concessions.

In little over a month one in five teachers in the San Diego Unified School District will lose their job and health benefits. July 1 the district will hand out the first of three successive pay raises to the remaining teachers.

Without concessions, the school board voted to lay off one in five teachers to help offset a $122 million deficit to next year’s budget. Trustees have until June 30 to adopt a final budget that could be amended to save jobs, said board President John Lee Evans.

“There seems to be some movement that could lead to us sitting down for some talks,” Evans said. “The first step will be the budget analysis to show there are no hidden pots of money.”

With class sizes and jobs on the line, many educators and parents throughout the district are watching the countdown to layoffs closely.

Sharon Fargason, a third-grade teacher at Fay, is willing to pass on a raise to save jobs and preserve the culture at her school, where the majority of students are poor English-learners.

“At this point, it’s not going to get any better. We are going to have to give stuff up for our kids, “ said Fargason, who has taught in the district for nine years.

Lisa Schenck, who started teaching in 1989, opposes concessions because she distrusts the district that she said has cried wolf too many times.

“Right now, I would say no. I feel like the district will do what it takes to get us to give in,” said Schenk, a teacher at Twain High School. “ But I’m keeping an open mind and will consider the budget analysis.”

Cindy Marten, principal at Central Elementary School, is pushing her faculty to participate in the pending union survey.

“I don’t care how you stand on this,” Marten told her staff, which would be cut in half after layoffs. “Use your voice as a teacher to actively participate in your future. If public education matters enough in this city, then we have to make this work.”

Under the teachers’ contract with the district approved in 2010, teachers agreed to forgo raises and cut their pay 2.5 percent for two years via furloughs to help San Diego Unified cope with the state’s relentless fiscal crisis. In exchange, the district agreed to boost teacher pay three times in the 2012-13 school year — 2 percent July 1, 2 percent Jan. 1 and 3 percent June 30, 2013 — in addition to ending furloughs to raise pay another 2.5 percent. But the same board that approved the contract says times have remained tough for California schools. And the only way to pay for raises is by cutting the payroll.